If you’re like most of America (or friends with most of America), you watched the game that we all watched yesterday.

Oops. Not that game. The other one. Yes, the Super Bowl. We usually watch to root for our favorite team, or at least the one that embodies some perceived value that we (or they) hold dear. This year, most of us watched for the commercials. Yes, we all liked the one with all of the cartoons that partially melted our brains when we were kids. And we liked the one that Budweiser actually put some thought into (about a rescue dog named “Wego” that is compelled to get beer upon being called that also begs us all to adopt rescue dogs (and buy more Bud)). But what about the one that invites us all, as red blooded Americans, to get behind the brand because they put five people on the screen that told us how awesome this giant corporation has been for them (and therefor you and me). The GE ad (which for the life of my I cannot get to embed into this post).

Building Something Big in Louisville

In this commercial, GE tells us:

• GE Appliance Park has “been here” since the ’50s.
• they are “on the forefront” of “revitalizing” manufacturing, proving that it “can be done here and it can be done well”.
• There are construction workers everywhere, so that means work.
• GE will bring this country back.

This got me a little excited about the GE. Oz cautioned me to dig a little deeper before going all God Bless G.E. So I am, more or less as I write this.

• in 2010, “The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.”
• The plant has been in Louisville since the 1950′s, and is big enough to sport its own zip code, although it now employs about 1/5th of the more than 25,000 employees it has in the past. (Source)
• The same source as the bullet above cites GE (in 2009), regarding its hybrid water heaters as having “the potential to be a huge seller for GE. It’s green, it’s high-tech, it can be a big energy-saver. It’s the kind of manufacturing that Washington wants more of in the United States.”
• Construction workers being “everywhere” are neither easily confirmed nor in any way necessarily good.
• GE bringing this country back is not a factual statement, and frankly, any single corporation that has the ability to single handedly save (or destroy) our country terrifies me.